Responsible Beverage Service Training educates persons seeking employment or who are currently employed as servers of alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption. It aims to provide servers the necessary skills to responsibly serve alcoholic beverages and mitigate alcohol related harm in California communities.
What is the RBS Training Program?
Passage of Assembly Bill 1221 in 2017 created the Responsible Beverage Service Training Act. The bill required the Alcoholic Beverage Control to create the Responsible Beverage Service Training Program to ensure servers and their managers of alcoholic beverages are educated on the dangers of serving alcohol to minors and over-serving alcohol to patrons with the intention of reducing alcohol related harm to local communities. The new mandate creates a new training requirement for an estimated 1,000,000 on-premises alcohol servers, their managers, and licensees beginning in 2021.
Beginning July 1, 2021, any alcohol server and their manager must have a valid RBS certification from an ABC accredited RBS training provider and pass an online ABC administered RBS exam within 60 calendar days from the first date of employment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is RBS training mandatory and do I need a certificate to serve alcohol in California?
Who must be trained under AB 1221?
Beginning in July 2021, any ABC licensee who has an “ABC On-Premises License” will need to have their staff (alcohol servers and managers of alcohol servers) trained and certified in RBS within sixty (60) days of employment. This includes but is not limited to: restaurants, bars, fast casual dining, tasting rooms (including off-sale locations), hotels, and stadiums.
“ABC On-Premises License” means an ABC license that grants the privilege to serve alcoholic drinks to patrons who then consume them within the licensed premises.